This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 from my application entitled CONTROL METHOD OF WASHING MACHINE CONSIDERING CHARACTERISTIC OF ABSORPTION IN CLOTHES filed with the Korean Industrial Property Office on Jul. 31, 2001 and there duly assigned Serial No. 2001-46165.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method for controlling a washing machine, and more particularly to a method for controlling a washing machine according to absorption characteristics of the laundry, in such a way that when highly absorptive laundry is washed in the washing machine; during a rinsing step, a plural number of intermittent spin-drying operations are performed instead of a high-speed spin-drying operation to provide sufficient time for discharging water; and during a spin drying step, a sufficient number of spin-drying operations are performed to discharge water absorbed into the laundry and, thereafter, a normal spin-drying operation is performed to reach the final highest spin-drying speed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, a washing machine has several washing modes to be selected by a user in accordance with the material of the laundry. Therefore, once one washing mode is selected by the user in accordance with the material of the laundry such as cotton, silk or synthetic fiber, the washing machine performs a washing cycle (consisting of washing, rinsing, and spin-drying steps) according to the preset information of the selected washing mode including washing time, washing speed, washing temperature, number of rinsing operations, spin-drying time, spin-drying speed and water level. Furthermore, some of options, such as washing temperature, spin-drying speed, and number of rinsing operation, may be manually selected by the user input.
Generally, even the laundry formed of the same material may absorb and discharge different amounts of water according to the weaving characteristics of the laundry. Accordingly, the amount of water absorbed by the laundry may be varied with the weaving pattern of the laundry. In particular, laundry formed of a pile texture in the form of loops, such as a towel or blanket, rapidly absorbs a large amount of water, and discharges a large amount of water during the spin-drying operation.
However, in the conventional method for controlling a washing machine, washing modes are classified into various types in accordance with only the material of the laundry, so the same rinsing and spin drying steps are carried out for the laundry formed of the same material. Accordingly, there arises a problem that the laundry formed of the same material are washed in the same manner regardless of their different water absorption characteristics, thereby hindering the laundry from being effectively rinsed and spin-dried.
Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problem, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for controlling washing machine according to absorption characteristics of the laundry.
In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a method for controlling a washing machine according to the absorption characteristics of the laundry, the washing machine performing washing, rinsing and spin-drying steps in sequence, comprising the steps of: setting a washing mode for the absorption characteristics of laundry; and performing a preset plural number of intermittent spin-drying operations in the washing and rinsing steps in accordance with the set washing mode for the absorption characteristics of the laundry.